Nearly everyone understands that a college education is an amazing opportunity. A university is a place for students to forge a path in life. It’s where they can discover more about themselves, make new connections, and broaden their horizons.

Everyone at HSU has dedicated their careers to making sure students have these opportunities.

However, too many times, these hopes and dreams come crashing down when a student is sexually assaulted.

Unfortunately, sexual assaults, relationship violence, and stalking are all too common on America’s college campuses. In a 2019 survey by the American Association of Universities, about 1 in 4 undergraduate women reported experiencing nonconsensual sexual contact, with similar rates for trans and non-binary students, and the reported rate for men was about 1 in 16. Most often, students are harmed by someone they know.

Sometimes this reality makes headlines, but usually, it remains invisible to the broader community.

We take sexual assault prevention and survivor-centered support very seriously at Humboldt State University. Our initiatives designed to reduce sexual assault and support survivors truly stand out. Faculty and staff, along with hundreds of students, have made this a priority over the years, and their work has been recognized at the CSU level as well as nationally.

HSU’s prevention work is focused on changing culture to emphasize affirmative consent. It also focuses on creating respect for boundaries and care for one another, and works to empower people to understand how to intervene as active bystanders. This gets to the heart of the problem, which are cultural norms that allow or even encourage sexual violence.

The work at HSU includes our student-led CHECK IT program, which teaches students and others to be safe and to be active bystanders. It also includes the Campus Advocate Team, which provides free and confidential support to the campus community, and often refers survivors to other campus, community, and tribal support services. Campus efforts have informed a new first-year student learning community in our College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences called “Students for Violence Prevention.”

We have recently expanded staffing in our Title IX office to be able to more effectively respond to sexual misconduct, which includes assaults. So despite recent changes to Title IX rules that limit what we must investigate, we are actively finding ways to intervene more often.

Many efforts are coordinated by dedicated faculty, staff, students, and community members who are part of our Sexual Assault Prevention Committee (SAPC). The group addresses policy, training, prevention efforts, and responses, and their efforts have been part of a Department of Justice Campus Grant program that HSU has received three times.

Significantly, all HSU employees are required to have training in preventing sexual assault. Many employees, including our police officers, also take part in specialized training. Our SAPC leaders are also called upon to provide training and technical support across the CSU and nationally.

There are important resources on campus and in the community to support survivors. They include:

• Campus Advocate Team provides 24-hour free and confidential support at HSU, 707-445-2881.
• HSU Title IX Office assists any member of the HSU community who has experienced sexual misconduct, 707-826-5177.
• North Coast Rape Crisis Team provides support to the community and has a 24-hour crisis line, 707-445-2881.

As a community we must continue to confront sexual assault and to provide survivor-centered support. This is not just for students, but all of society. Be well.

Dr. Tom Jackson, Jr. is the president of Humboldt State University.